After I broke my nose on Sunday 10th July (see
gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2011-07-10&team=16 for gruesome photo) I posted, I think on the Monday, that it seemed under control. Well things went dramatically worse the next day - I ended up being rushed to hospital by ambulance on Tuesday night as I had lost so much blood with repeated bleeds that I was near losing consciousness, and the bleed that night seemed unstoppable. I blacked out in the emergency room which was handy as I took me to the front of what the ambos warned me was about a 4 hr queue!
I ended up spending four hellish days in hospital, lost an estimated 2.5-3L blood all up, had 5 units of blood tranfused back into me, a general anaesthetic on Wednesday night and surgery to clamp off the small artery causing all the bleeding. I was allowed to come home on Friday night feeling very weak.
Probably the worst part was their repeated attempts, before the resort to surgery, to block the bleeding by ramming tampon-like wads far up my nostrils. This was excruciatingly painful. It was also pretty horrible on the repeated bleeds having blood flow down the back of my nose into my throat so fast I had to spit it up every few seconds or risk drowning in my own blood if it went into my lungs!
A month later I am still coughing up small clots of blood in the mornings and my nose is still tender and a bit swollen. I have been advised to give it 6 weeks after the surgery before sailing again - so 2 weeks to go. But I still don't feel back to normal energy levels and get a bit puffed and light headed if I run up stairs.
I was wearing a helmet when the accident happened but the impact was just below the brow of the helmet. So I will be buying a Lacrosse helmet or something similar for future speedsailing - something with a full face guard. In hindsight it was lucky the impact wasn't a bit lower as it could have knocked out a lot of my teeth.
Thanks again for all the kind and supportive comments on GPS Team Challenge! And congratulations again to team mates who pulled off some awesome speeds on that epic day, including Spotty's world record!!
